Historians, Books, Computers, and the Library
MATTHEW
B. GILMORE
AND DONALD
0. CASE
~
~
ABSTRACT
PASTEXAMINATIONS OF THE interactions of librarianship with
historical scholarship have noted problems that libraries face in
serving historians. This article examines changes in the nature of
historical work that have occurred over the last four decades including
the advent of computers and electronic texts. The authors examine
recent developments-such as electronic publishing, electronic mail,
electronic journals, and hypertext databases-and suggest that some
of these tools will be of limited use to historians, due to the nature
of historical scholarship. While some historians may be reluctant
to adopt computer technology, many of them already use computers
in writing. Historians’ personal computers will be a gateway for new
forms of electronic information, as evidenced by the publication of
various CD-ROM files of relevance to historians. Other publishing
projects in the humanities also offer examples that historians can
follow in the use of electronic text and images.
INTRODUCTION
Almost forty years ago, Jesse Shera (1953) published a book that
contains points salient still today. The book is an extended essay
on history, its origin, practice, and on the methods and research needs
of the historian. Shera’s goal was to provide the background to educate
adequately the librarian whom he had found sadly lacking in
understanding of the historical research process while working on
Matthew B. Gilmore, Washingtoniana Division, Martin Luther King Memorial
Library, 901 G. St. NW, Washington, DC 20001
Donald 0. Case, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, 405 Hilgard
Avenue, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90024
LIBRARY TRENDS, Vol. 40, No. 4, Spring 1992, pp. 667-86
@ 1992 The Board of Trustees, University of Illinois
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his historical publication Foundations of t h e Public Library. Shera’s
seminal book will be used as a starting point to indicate how much
computer technology has and has not changed the practice of
librarianship and history.
First, imagine the tools commonly used by historians in 1953,
the year in which Shera published his book. Electric typewriters were
just being developed. Xerography-a technology that has altered
historical scholarship even more than the computer-was in its
infancy. Bibliographic tools, such as the National U n i o n Catalog,
existed only on paper. In short, the tools of the historian were hardly
different than they had been in decades past-largely paper, pencil,
a good memory, and a lot of note taking. Moving ahead thirty-odd
years, we find photocopiers in virtually every library and archive,
computer-based word processing, and many catalogs and abstracting
services-and, indeed, many publications themselves-available in
machine-searchableheadable form. Some of the particular tools
extolled by Shera have been supplemented or replaced by electronic
versions, in the sense that one might well choose to use OCLC, RLIN,
or a local union catalog instead of a printed version of the National
U n i o n Catalog.
Has the writing of history changed? In substance, no. Shera’s
description of the discipline is as valid today as it was in 1953. Yet,
in form and method, the discipline of history is changing in subtle
ways due to the introduction of new technologies of storage,
processing, and retrieval. Let us first consider how Shera described
the field four decades ago.
Shera’s book begins by indicating the position of history as a
social science and as a “transitional point between the social sciences
and humanities,” a view perhaps more widely held today than it
was at the time he published. The universal human interest in history
gave rise to libraries; historians later pressed for the establishment
of public libraries “in which they might find the books they needed
to pursue their own studies” (Shera, 1953, p. 1). Similarly, Kevin
Starr has pointed out in a speech at the 1990 Special Libraries
Association conference, that, in the nineteenth century, librarians
of ten were historians and historians had large personal libraries. The
association of historians and libraries may be most noticeable in
appointments to the position of Librarian of Congress, a post which
historians Daniel Boorstin and James Billington have held in recent
times.
Shera (1953) defines the task of the historian: “The historian
is a general social scientist whose primary concern is with the past.
In pursuit of this inquiry the historian may proceed as a political
scientist, a sociologist, an economist, a psychologist ....In short, the
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669
historian is the sociologist of the past” (pp. 2-3). Shera continues
with an exposition on ways in which to classify history: purpose
(descriptive, evaluative), subject (history of person, place, thing),
method (narrative, psychological analysis, statistical analysis). He
makes important points in contrasting the “indirect” methods of
history with “direct” methods of other social sciences. The historian
uses artifacts of the past but cannot ever come into direct contact
with or recreate it. This is the place of the library in the work of
the historian-the repository of the textual/graphic record (artifacts)
of the past. As the historian must examine all of the evidence before
presenting a case before his peers, the historian must have access
to all of that evidence. To serve the historian, the library must have
access to all of that evidence. Primary evidence consists of artifacts:
published text (including inscriptions, official public records, official
private records, newspapers) and unpublished text (personal records
and correspondence).Secondary sources are important to the historian
marshaling his evidence, both to verify that all the primary evidence
which is appropriate for his argument has been used and to argue
his case in scholarly debate either along similar lines as fellow
historians or to dispute their interpretations.
The work of the historian involves the collection of evidence and
its selection, organization, analysis, and interpretation. Shera notes
that the historian rarely chooses a topic ab initio; his environment
of ten has pressed it upon him-from reading, colleagues, previous
projects. From that beginning, each historian tackles the topic in an
individual fashion. Ideally, the first step is a review of all of the
outstanding literature. Here the structures of the historical discipline
are most helpful-bibliographies, journals, books, directories, library
catalogs-in determining the scope of the question and previous
attempts at addressing it. The historian, simply by dint of the task,
picks and chooses phenomena to emphasize, though he does not accord
this its central role in the practice of history. Peter Uva (1977)outlines
a five stage process of historical research: (1) problem selection
(involving preliminary work and hypotheses), (2)detailed planning
of data collection, (3) data collection, (4)analysis and interpretation
of data, and ( 5 ) presentation of findings (p. 16). He notes that stages
overlap and some work may be simultaneous, as does Orbach (1984,
1991) in her exploration of the historian’s research process. Orbach
(1991) also notes that the end product intended, time frame available,
as well as amount of material available, play a role in the process,
and that at a certain point further materials are not used as the shape
of the narrative has been formed and anything more would be an
overload (pp. 34-35). Charles Tilly (1990),provided his answer to “How
(and what) are historians doing?” His article provides a historian’s
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perspective (albeit colored by sociology) on historical evidence. For
Tilly, at least, the historian and the evidence he uses is less important
than the intellectual task of writing.
In contrast with this sympathy of aims and goals through mutual
activity (historians as librarians, librarians as historians), both fields
have become specialized and professionalized. Historical scholarship
slowly became professionalized and developed a pattern and
methodology. Shera (1953) points out that it was not until after 1800
that history was separated from other academic disciplines, and only
in the late 1800s was the professorate formed in the United States
along the lines of the German model (p. 87). History became an
academic career, including a credentialing process of producing and
defending a dissertation. Associations dedicated to historians were
formed, most notably the American Historical Association in 1884,
and the Mississippi Valley Historical Association (now the
Organization of American Historians) in 1907. Librarians developed
a similar credentialing process and cluster of professional organizations. The demands of each profession make it harder to be
both a librarian and a historian. Computer technology has widened
the gaps between them as well. The historian and the library may
work at aoss-purposes-the historian may fail to take fullest advantage
of the resources available, and the library may fail to serve the historian
to the fullest extent possible. Indeed, the irrelevance of some library
tools to historical (and other humanistic) scholarship has been featured
in several recent studies (Gould, 1988; Wiberley, 1991).
Therefore, both history and librarianship call into play issues
of professionalization and technology. The historian is driven by the
need to carve a unique niche, with the dissertation and then with
articles and books, in the pursuit of a professional (and typically
academic) career. This exploration in depth drives the historian
beyond the resources of his home library to other libraries and archives
or to use of interlibrary loan. As an individualistic pursuit, this also
militates against extensive use of that technology which is cooperative
and generalizable. The historian has less to gain by adopting those
information technologies which the library might use to provide
greater access to materials-i.e., electronic mail, electronic file transfer,
and digital storage of text and images, and trial applications in the
sciences and perhaps even in the humanities at large. While
technophobia is an individual trait, not readily generalizable to the
practitioners of a discipline, the practice of history itself is an
impediment to the adoption of new technology.
Often the historian uses not just a text but its context which
may include everything from the era in which the document was
written to the paper on which it was written and the ink used. This
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671
need for con textual evidencegibes uneasily with the decon textualizing
effects of digitization (similar to the reduction of context in
microfilmed materials). Having materials digitized might indeed
provide greater access to the intellectual content and could allow
the user to select the appropriate materials quicker but cannot obviate
the need to see the actual document. The expense of providing this
secondary indexing capacity is difficult to justify for the use of the
individual scholar. Popular materials may indeed be rehoused in this
format, but it is often unique materials the historian is after, has
the hardest time accessing, and is least willing to share. Historians
are not monolithic in their adoption (or nonadoption) of computer
technology, just as they are not monolithic in methodology or
ideology. Indeed, those historians whose methods are more social
scientific and data-oriented are more likely to adopt computers to
manipulate that data (e.g., see Burton 8c Finnegan, 1989).
Serving this gamut of historians means devoting more resources
to old and new technologies-books, periodicals, computers, CDROM, online catalogs, and electronic mail. The library acts as a
conduit for information about available resources and as a means
of access to nonlocal materials. New technologies, applied
appropriately, can help.
The relationship between library and historian and computer
technology offers opportunities. Glancing at the table of contents
of Reference Sources In History (Fritze et al., 1990), one can see the
resources which the library provides to the historian currently and
probably shall forever. Bibliographies, book review indexes, periodical
guides, periodical indexes and abstracts, newspaper indexes and
newspapers, dissertations and theses, government publications,
biographical sources, geographical sources, historic statistical sources,
archival, manuscript, and special collections are all resources too
great in scope, too specialized, or simply beyond the ordinary needs
of an individual. These secondary and primary resources are what
the library can provide the historian. Some resources used by
historians in their research have been, can, or should be made available
electronically. The card catalog has all but been replaced by the online
catalog (a more flexible tool, though less browseable) which can be
dialed up and consulted off site.
As an ever-greater number of historians are exposed to the
technological changes that have affected the scholarly publishing
industry during recent years, it would benefit us to consider what
the future may bring to publishing in history. To do this we will
examine recent developments in publishing, experiences in other
fields with electronic communication, and the issues raised of
particular relevance and importance to historians.
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VARIETIES
OF ELECTRONIC
PUBLISHING
It was not so long ago that the word publishing could mean
only one thing: the application of ink to paper and the subsequent
manufacture and distribution of the books and journals so produced.
However, during the past decade, both the methods and meaning
of publishing have become blurred-there is no longer such an
enterprise distinct from the industries of computing, telecommunications, and, yes, even broadcasting. This blurring of
boundaries, of techniques and audiences, is assumed by the term
electronic pu b 1ishing.
Electronic publishing refers to the distribution of information
in machine-readable form. As such, it can appear in a bewildering
variety of form and content-as a document on magnetic disk
produced on a personal computer by word processing software; as
a historical simulation on a microcomputer; as a machine-readable
encyclopedia on a CD-ROM disk (an optical medium similar to that
used for audio compact disks); as journal article abstracts over phone
wires from a remote database; as an electronic bulletin board for
the exchange of scholarly letters and manuscripts; or as an online
catalog of book citations found in a university library. Other authors
(e.g., Seiler & Raben, 1981; Gibbins, 1984) have offered somewhat
narrow definitions of electronic publishing. However, for the purposes
of this discussion, electronic publishing will be considered to
encompass online databases, electronic library catalogs, optical
storage devices, scholarly word processing, electronic journals,
computer bulletin boards, and electronic mail networks.
Electronic Writing
A fitting place to start a discussion of electronic publishing and
the historian is with historians as authors of scholarly texts, many
of whom have made their own contribution to electronic publishing
through the adoption of personal computers for writing. Case (1985a,
1986) found that the chief use of computers by scholars has been
for word processing rather than for more highly touted applications
like statistical, database, and spreadsheet programs. Many academics
make their living by writing as well as by teaching. It is no surprise
that a general purpose device for symbol manipulation should be
used for this most basic of tasks. The computer eliminates much
of the drudgery formerly associated with composing, typing, and
revising manuscripts, while adding relatively little “overhead” of its
own, only the need to learn procedures for saving and printing out
files. Although many scholars cling to whatever writing methods
have proved successful for them in the past, many more have adopted
the computer as a writing tool. Historians, in particular, have been
GILMORE & CASE/HISTORIANS, BOOKS, COMPUTERS, LIBRARY
673
rather quick to embrace computers for this purpose despite some
misgivings among humanists regarding the implications of such an
action (Lyman, 1989; Case, 1985a). One small survey of historians
(Case, 1991b) found seventeen out of twenty using word processing
in their work. In the positive view, word processing is merely one
more step along an evolutionary line of human expression that started
with cave paintings-it is a kind of super typewriter (Bolter, 1987).
Other scholars (e.g., Heim, 1987) express misgivings about the effect
of this new tool on our capacities for both writing and thinking.
The very fact that scholars are now using computers to compose
monographs and articles gives great impetus to electronic publishing.
Whether publishers use the author’s own file for typesetting or input
the text anew, they are increasingly making use of computers in the
processes of composition and printing. Aside from the obvious
efficiencies, the use of the computer opens up new possibilities for
additional products: citations and abstracts may be stripped out of
the full text and passed along to a bibliographic database producer
or the complete text may be sold as an electronic product. Several
books have been written for the scholar using a computer, including
T h e Electronic Scholar by John Lawrence (1984) and The Scholar’s
Personal Cornfiuting Handbook by Bryan Pfaffenberger (1986).
Lawrence discusses word processing, e-mail, electronic filing, online
searching, electronic manuscript submission, and other uses of the
computer (and issues such as copyright). Articles discussing word
processing are numerous; one writ ten specifically about historians
is Patrick Peebles’s (1988), “The Impact of Computer Technology
on Historical Research.” We will next examine the computerization
and aggregation of texts into various forms-letters, journals, books,
and libraries.
Electronic Letters and Journals
Kronick (1976), Ziman (1976), and Case (1985b) have examined
the origins of modern scholarly and scientific journals, and Stieg
( 1986)has examined the origins of historical periodicals in particular.
An eighteenth-century outgrowth of personal letters and meeting
proceedings, journals play a key role in the scholarly discourse of
many fields. Periodicals devoted to history began much later than
scientific journals-the first scholarly historical periodicals were of
nineteenth-century German origin and the first of those to survive
to the present, the Historische Zeitschrift, began in 1859. The
Historische Zeitschrift created a model of scholarship for the rest
of the historical academy to follow.
Given their origin in exchanges between individuals and small
groups, it makes sense that some electronic equivalent to journals
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is likely to evolve. Many communities of scientists and social scientists
already exchange queries, findings, and opinions via electronic mail
systems, bulletin boards, and conferences. Special services connect
linguists and chemists in swift and surprisingly personal exchanges.
Special facilities are not needed-virtually any academic in a research
university can send mail through the Bitnet that connects major
universities in North America and many others around the world.
The scholarly use of electronic mail, at present, is more a question
of personal preference rather than the availability of resources. The
list HISTORY on Bitnet has sparked only sporadic usage, perhaps
due to the individualistic nature of historians, the informal nature
of the medium, and the interpersonal distance built into electronic
mail-it is hard to create a “faculty lounge” atmosphere through
electronic mail, and it is difficult to engage in meaningful debate
in such an open forum.
The electronic journal (Seiler & Raben, 1981; Case, 1985b) is a
computer-based version of a print journal. In its fullest implementation (e.g., as described by Roistacher, 1978) the electronic
journal is a complete system of editors, referees, and subscribers.
Contributors may submit text files directly from their own computer
to a central store where they are read, judged, and publicized by
editors. Readers dial into a central database of these submissions to
select the articles they wish to read; they may scan the articles online,
printing only the most desirable ones. Such systems could encompass
all aspects of the journal producing process-including screening
by referees. Indeed, one of the attractive things about Roistacher’s
vision of an electronic journal is that it has no page constraints;
it could “publish” all submissions, allowing subscribers to judge
quality for themselves.
Librarians have begun to take advantage of the publishing
possibilities of electronic communication. For example, librarian
Charles W. Bailey, of the University of Houston, edits the PACS
Review. The approximately 1,600 subscribers to the PACS-L (Public
Access Computers List) mailing/discussion list receive notices
regularly announcing the newest issue and how to retrieve individual
articles. The journal is not automatically sent to list members, but
each article must be individually requested.
One of the drawbacks of electronic journals is that most scholars
typically prefer that someone properly accredited should screen
material for quality; editors play a key role in the system of scholarly
communication by encouraging the quality and discouraging (we
hope) the quantity of publications. In turn, the process of refereeing
creates a motivation for submitting an article in the first placethe reward system is constructed around the prestige of publishing
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in certain places and computer files are not yet so regarded. Indeed,
one of the problems that was noted in the first experimental electronic
journals was the lack of recognition associated with such publications
(Turoff & Hiltz, 1982). The very value of electronic communication
has been questioned. Harnad (1990)has likened electronic publishing
to scholarly “skywriting.” Studies have shown the need to retain
other aspects of paper journals-e.g., designating “issues” of a journal
is still necessary so that subscribers will know when to access the
system to see new material.
Electronic communication may create additional problems for
scholars. Access to and use of equipment are obvious problemsthese turned out to be sticking points in early implementations
(Shackel, 1983). Other problems are less obvious. Paul (1981) and
Hannemyr and Flood (1985)point out the difficulty entailed in citing
electronic documents or letters. Such documents lack fixity. They
may be altered, expanded, or erased completely-unlike the printed
word. To use Harvey Wheeler’s ( 1987)words-an electronic document
is fluid and fungible. One cannot be absolutely sure of its authenticity.
For historians, who put a premium on the veracity of a record, this
constitutes a serious flaw. A document must have fixity to be of use.
Even conversations are quoted with almost as much fixity as possible,
narrowed down to the particular day (though not time).
In summary, publishing journals in electronic form is possible
and has been done in other academic fields, but the record so far
holds little promise for historical journals. As in other fields, the
disappointing outlook is due in part to lack of resources and in part
to human factors such as unfriendly equipment and lack of
recognition for publication. The need for quick publishing simply
does not exist in history as it does in other fields such as the hard
sciences and medicine. Another consideration working against
electronic journals is the heavy reliance among historians on
publication of scholarly monographs. Historians rarely make a career
of publishing scholarly articles, and the whole process of research
and writing, the time involved, and the kind of ideas presented and
developed, resists the publication of short works and rather encourages
monographic publication.
However, the use of the computer for personal communications
between scholars is in keeping with the individualistic perspective
of historical scholarship. Outgrowths of electronic mail, such as
bulletin boards, for the exchange of notes about historical topics and
materials, hold promise for use by historians. At least one special
system, HurnaNet, already exists for this purpose (Rutimann, 1987).
HumaNet, online since summer 1986, covers history, philosophy,
religion, and English (Slatta, 1986).HumaNet represents half of North
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Carolina State University’s ScholarNet, begun in 1985 as a medium
for sharing of data and text, teleconferencing, and e-mail. The
companion system, P o l i N e t , covers political science, public
administration, and criminal justice.
Subscribers to the system may volunteer to function as “online
editors” coordinating information on a topic, collating articles, data
files, bibliographies, and other appropriate materials. Connected to
sixty-five other countries, scholars can easily communicate with their
foreign colleagues. Online databases, produced by ABC-Clio, can be
accessed through a gateway to DIALOG on both HurnaNet and
PoZiNet. ScholarNet is growing but more slowly than its Director
Richard Slatta had hoped (Schick, 1987, p. 519).
Electronic Books and Libraries
Many historians know that bibliographic databases exist even
though they may not use them. The electronic equivalent of printed
indexes to publications, they exist in many forms and cover a
bewildering variety of subjects, and their numbers are growing
incredibly. In 1988, the number of databases available to the public
was estimated at nearly 4,000 (Cuadra/Elsevier, 1988). In 1991 that
number has climbed to nearly 6,000 (Marcaccio, 1991).Only a fraction
of these cover humanities subjects and only a few concern history
specifically. The most widely known databases are ABC-Clio’s
Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life, both available
in machine-readable form as well as in printed versions (Boehm,
1978; Falk, 1981). But humanists in general have not taken to online
searching (Riitimann, 1987; Katzen, 1986). Both the expense of
database searching a n d the frequent lack of a precise a n d
unambiguous vocabulary are at fault (Frye, 1973; Wiberley, 1983).
Historical databases offer particular problems especially in searching
by historical period (Falk, 1981b; Grinell, 1987).
Historians of ten remark that the very design of printed and online
indexes often makes them useless for serious searching because the
full text of the article must be scanned to appreciate its true content.
Most databases were designed for the sciences, in which the results
of investigations may be more concisely stated. Indeed, Maurice B.
Line (1982, p. 38) suggests that few articles need to be produced
in full text, the abstractor’s summary having already said it all (and
that “all” not being very much in some cases). Here the literary
nature of much historical writing conflicts with the technologyunlike scientific materials, historical works would lose much of their
value if produced chiefly in abstract form. Most importantly, abstracts
simply do not currently contain the information that scholars find
most important-e.g., point of view, theme, etc. (Tibbo, 1989), simply
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due to their brevity and the “physical science” model followed by
abstracting and indexing services.
However, databases are changing in two ways that are especially
significant for historians given the nature of their enterprise-first
is the increasing availability of full-text databases; second is the
development of CD-ROM for database distribution. Advances in both
publishing and storage technology are making full text more and
more common. Entire articles and newspapers, such as the Wall Street
Journal, Washington Post, and Christian Science Monitor, are
reproduced in machine-readable form for rapid searching. These are
available not only from remote computers but also on CD-ROM.
CD-ROM has several advantages. It is local rather than remote and
the need for modems, phone lines, and operating knowledge of such
is eliminated. The CD-ROM is used in conjunction with microcomputers which are familiar to many academics. Finally, and perhaps
most significantly, the costs are fixed rather than based on unit of
time-once the library subscribes to the database it may be used for
any length of time without additional charges (Riitimann, 1987). In
fact, the more often a CD is searched the more cost effective i t becomes.
If computer-based journals are less likely to appeal to historians,
how about electronic books? One can imagine in the future a
computer, essentially just a screen, perhaps LED, about the size of
an 81/2 by 11 inch page and about as thick as a good sized book
(Starr, 1983). Transportable, it perhaps need not have a large memory,
only the ability to hold a 31/2 inch disk which would contain a book
(or one or more issues of a journal, for that matter). It could be
plugged into a printer for hard copy, and quotations could be
excerpted for reading. Such a device is a natural extension of current
CD-ROM technology; Sony Corporation’s “Data DiscMan Electronic
Book”-a hand-held CD-ROM drive with its own liquid crystal
display-is an evolutionary step in this direction (Kountz, 1991).
Compact book-like research devices have been the dream of
technologists ever since Vannevar Bush’s prophetic essay, “As We May
Think” (1945). Bush described a desk-like device (the MEMEX) that
would store research materials and connect to libraries containing
other materials. Not only would it allow reading of such materials,
but it would enable the user to browse subject areas in varying depth,
connecting one item with another through electronic glosses. Portions
of this concept have been implemented in two forms: (1)the scholarly
workstation, and (2)hypertext files.
Workstations for Scholars. The Scholar’s Workstation, as it is called
at Brown University (Moran et al., 1987), is an attempt to create
something like Bush’s “MEMEX” using current technology. The
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centerpiece is a very fast and powerful computer, devoted to a single
individual scholar, yet connected to a local network of other
computers, peripheral devices (such as laser printers), and databases
(such as the library catalog and CD-ROM disks). Such workstations
are envisioned as synergistic tools for knowledge creation, allowing
the user to create documents and pictures, search online databases,
and communicate with other scholars. With such a device, one could,
for example, consult a variety of reference works in the course of
a project as Crane (1988) describes:
When studying an idea, we need to move rapidly back and forth between
a number of sources, such as maps, dictionaries, texts, or encyclopedic
information. A single compact disk devoted to a single subject could
certainly store a compact online library. The five hundred or so books
that could fit onto a CD would not, of course, replace a major research
collection, but they could easily include the most basic resources (texts,
dictionaries, grammars, bibliography, commentary, etc.). (pp. 7-8)
As one might expect, the costs for such equipment are quite
high and are consequently out of reach of most humanities
departments within the near future. Brown University is considering
the acquisition of u p to 500 workstations to be attached to a campuswide network. The broadband network would connect all major
computers a t Brown a n d would be capable of transmitting
conversations and pictures as well as text and other data. The result
will be an integration of computations, word processing, information
retrieval, data analysis, computer graphics, network communications,
and library access (Moran et al., 1987).
Hypertext. Hypertext is a term coined by Ted Nelson (1967) to describe
a system that would index and link very large numbers of documents
building on the “MEMEX” notion of Vannevar Bush. Hypertext is
a way of organizing material in which units of text are linked by
users in a flexible and relatively effortless manner. In its ideal form,
hypertext would allow a user to form (and follow) chains of ideas
as they appear in massive files of electronic text-a virtual library
of the world’s writings. Unfortunately, the term has become so popular
as to be diluted in meaning, as various software publishers have
used it to describe new products-all of them far removed from the
visions of Bush or Nelson-for writing and searching text files
(Borgman & Henstell, 1989).
The presumed advantage of hypertext would be the connection
and juxtaposition of relevant items of text to provide new insightssomething not too distant from what many historians do currently.
The book, it is said, is too linear, too physically constraining, to
allow this. But is hypertext really an advantage over the book or
merely over earlier versions of computer technology? We are reminded
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of the words of Northrop Frye (1973): “the book qua book is not
linear: we follow a line while we are reading it, but the book itself
is a stationary visual focus of a community. It is the electronic media
that increase the amount of linear experience, of things seen and
heard that are as quickly forgotten” (p. 15).
While the trend in computing machinery has been toward easier
manipulation and navigation, as with notebook computers and the
introduction of new pen interfaces (Reinhardt, 1991),until a computer
is more like a book kinesthetically, electronic publishing of either
journals or books is not likely to be very popular among historians.
There is nothing quite so “user-friendly” as a book.
CURRENT
A ND FUTURE
APPLICATIONS
IN HISTORY
One could imagine other applications of computer databases in
history. A current approach is the development of machine-readable,
full-text files of historical material, along the lines of a litigation
support database. For instance, published source materials, such as
the collected letters of dozens of American historical figures (e.g.,
Thomas Jefferson), would be potential candidates for publication
on CD-ROM. In fact, the University of Virginia has announced their
intention of putting the collected diaries and correspondence of
George Washington on CD-ROM for distribution to libraries in 1992.
Oxford University Press has established an electronic publishing
division and is now offering magnetic disk versions of the works
of David Hume and John Locke as well as a microcomputer version
of their concordance software (Micro-OCP) and a CD-ROM version
of the Oxford English Dictionary. Specialized electronic publishers
have sought opportunities in the discipline of history: one called
The Bureau publishes a disk of Constitution Papers, featuring the
full text of documents relating to the founding of the United States,
including the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, the Declaration
of Independence, the Monroe Doctrine, and many other documents.
While one could argue that such files have limited utility for most
scholars, their existence suggests the type of materials that could
be made available in this popular electronic format.
Calendars-standard primary historical resources-would be a
great boon to the historian as well, for example, the calendar of
letters and papers of Henry VIII. A good number of other large
primary sources, such as the Calendar of State Papers, Venetian (38
volumes), the Calendar of State Papers, Simancas (4 volumes), the
Journals of the House of Lords (208 volumes), the Pipe Rolls series
(85 volumes), the Domesday Book (35 volumes), the Harleian
Miscellany (3 volumes), and Strype’s Ecclesiastical Memorials
(3 volumes), standard tools for historical research, could be made
much more accessible if put into electronic form.
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Texts that were typeset using a computer would be much easier
to place in machine-readable format; those that were not could be
read into a file using optical character recognition (OCR) devicesalthough OCR remains rather finicky about what it will read reliably.
The creation of full-text databases is expensive and labor intensive,
beyond the reach of either individual scholars or history departments.
Also, the economy of scale in mass market CD-ROM disks would
not be reached. Financial support would be required from foundations
or consortia of historians or universities to make such products a
reality.
Although expensive, such projects could allow more sophisticated
manipulation of texts along the lines of those scholars exploring
libraries for lost works of Shakespeare and finding them through
use of word frequencies. Here the descriptive aspect of history and
the evaluative would conflict. The scholar might enjoy manipulating
texts, but his or her main goal is a reasoned interpretative description.
Devoting too much time to the data defeats the purpose of its existence.
The work that a computer can perform is merely preparatory. Putting
the Florentine catasto of 1427 into machine-readable form is a worthy
accomplishment in that scholars will be able to analyze more easily
demographic data (Herlihy et al., 1978, 1985). “Publication” of
unwieldy chunks of statistical material like the catasto in electronic
form is quite a time-saving marvel for the historian and will improve
scholarship, and similar data sets should be published.
Several history-oriented databases have reached production,
typically with foundation or university support. One is the Thesaurus
Linguae Graecae (Raben, 1986; Brunner, 1991), a collection of preA.D. 600 Greek texts. Such projects are not limited to text: Project
Perseus (a joint project of Harvard and UCLA) has compiled a visual
database of 10,000 images in addition to textual databases on the
classics (Crane, 1988, p. 41).
The publication of smaller texts is less feasible. Electronic forms
face a problem in the singular solitary aspect of historical scholarship.
Historians generally work alone on projects, each carving his own
niche in some time period and some region. The catasto was a
promising thing to make machine readable because it was so large
that many historians could study different aspects of Florentine society
using the same raw data. Smaller data files may offer fewer “economies
of scale.”
DISCUSSION:
HISTORY
AND ELECTRONIC
TEXT
In this age of computerization, many aspects of publishing, from
typesetting to transmission of text, have changed. These technical
and economic changes are bound to affect what is published and
GILMORE & CASE/HISTORIANS, BOOKS, COMPUTERS, LIBRARY
681
how i t is published (Horowitz, 1986), though some types of materials
and some disciplines are likely to resist more than others. One of
the fields in academia which has resisted technological innovation
is history (Wallach, 1988), not only because i t is so deeply rooted
in the past but also because particular forms of historical scholarship
have not had the resources to use expensive equipment and software.
Hanham (1971) and Case (1991a) point out that photocopying
has been much more revolutionary than computers. Photocopying
allows the transcription and collation of texts and personal and
transportable use for scholarship, away from the holding institution’s
library, and in the historian’s office at home or at the university.
Electronically published material may be a step backward in some
essential ways. The material is mediated by an expensive machine,
lacking ready transportability and permanence. It can be readily
manipulated but that manipulation leaves no trace or history-the
document is seamless; it is both inflexible and too flexible. The cost
of electronically mediated publications hearkens back to the days
of papyrus rolls and vellum manuscripts; i t drastically reduces access.
And, until recently, faculty did not have easy access to computers
to allow manipulation of electronic materials.
The diffusion of computer use into the historical profession will
be determined by the appropriateness of such technology to the kind
of scholarship pursued. Those historians most interested in
quantification (a task which the computer can do very well) will
be the most enthusiastic (Rowney, 1982). For example, Leland Carlson
(1981) attempted and abandoned the computer in his attempt to
establish the authorship of the works of Martin Marprelate. He felt
he could do a better job in textual and linguistic analysis, being
unable to pose the problem in any coherent fashion to a computer.
That the mechanics of producing a journal are greatly eased
by computerization is indisputable. However, the potential transfer
of responsibility for the physical production of scholarly works is
one some scholars deplore, seeing themselves responsible for the
content and not for its format. Case (1985b, pp. 312-13) describes the
evolution of electronic journals through a series of intermediate steps
of electronic production, computerized composition, and electronic
editing and reviewing. It may be a path that only a few historians
travel. Historians will probably never become enamored of the
“paperless society,” a development which could deprive future
generations of historians of many records; this is especially true
considering the rapid obsolescence of computer systems and software,
a tendency that could make yesterday’s electronic text harder, rather
than easier, to retrieve.
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CONCLUSION
As more material becomes available in machine-readable form,
the historian undoubtedly will deal with it in some fashion rather
than ignore a valuable resource. Electronic publishing-defined here
as encompassing online databases, electronic library catalogs, optical
technologies, word processing, electronic journals, bulletin boards,
and their related electronic mail networks-offers a new world of
information for the scholar. The chief use of computers by scholars
has been for word processing rather than for applications like
statistical and spreadsheet programs, and since what historians do
mostly is read and write rather than “compute,” this predominance
of word processing is to be expected. To move the historian from
word processing to accessing the larger world of machine-readable
text will be difficult at present until the development of computers
that are able to switch easily and transparently between applications,
along the lines of Bush’s MEMEX. Ever smaller and lighter laptop
computers are a step in the right direction, allowing “electronic”
note taking and easy transferral of those notes to a personal computer.
New pen-based interfaces for computers may help, too. However,
at present some of the information systems and much of the hardware
and software is simply not easy enough to use to make learning
to use it worthwhile for the historian-and the law formulated by
Calvin Mooers’s holds: an information system will not be used if
it is more painful to get the information than to do without it.
Writings on the work of historians seem to indicate that they
would take advantage of a system which allowed easy access to
secondary sources online, such as online library catalogs and online
indexes, combined with word processing (see, for example, Reif, 1991).
The viability of electronically published journals is less certain. While
there has been criticism of the narrowness (and consequent irrelevance
to many readers) of articles published in journals such as the Journal
of American History, the opportunity electronic publishing holds
for publishing more articles may not appeal to the profession. The
speed of electronic publishing appeals most to the hard sciences and
medicine where new experimental results need quick publication.
The publication structure of the scholarly historical journal, built
u p since the 1850s, partly as an attempt to structure the profession
as a whole, is slower and more deliberate. Whether this gatekeeping1
refereeing structure can (or should) be replicated online is debatable.
Publication in electronic journals must be recognized, and this may
not happen before a more widespread adoption of both computers
and modems by historians (so that they might have access to the
electronic publications). Also, since much of the scholarship of history
is published in monographic format, a portable electronic book must
be developed before machine-readable text will be truly convenient.
GILMORE & CASE/HISTORIANS, BOOKS, COMPUTERS, LIBRARY
683
The creation of full-text databases of use to historians will be
expensive and labor intensive, so financial support would be required
from foundations or consortia of historians or universities to make
many such products a reality. Historians can turn to other initiatives
in the humanities for examples of successful projects. In philosophy,
a consortium of university departments and faculty from across the
United States-the Electronic Peirce Consortium-is pulling together,
in electronic format, the archives of the philosopher Charles Sanders
Peirce (Neuman, 1991).Involved in this project is full-text digitization
of the text of Peirce’s writings. In parallel is support of digitized
images of writings which illustrate his writing in various versions,
rewriting, hand-illustration, calculations and formulae, and even
doodling. Similar projects in history following this model would
facilitate more sophisticated manipulation of texts. The possibilities
are tremendous, as Sir Thomas Elyot (1531)would have realized: “So
large is the compass of that which is named history, that it
comprehendeth all thing[s] that is necessary to be put in memory”
(p. xxv).
One cannot, in the end, overlook an aspect of electronic
publishing which jars uncomfortably with the historical profession;
the historian deals with artifacts of the past in some physical form,
written or graphic, poetry, prose, or statistics; i t is not just the
information a document might contain but the evidential value of
the physical document the historian uses. Electronic publishing can
be impermanent, as anyone who has lost a file knows; in fact, any
scholar on the Pacific Rim would be wise to contemplate the fate
of the works on his or her hard disk in the face of the next earthquake.
Word processing simply allows the quicker and neater production
of physical copy. The idea of electronically producing text and having
its only form being electronic and never tangible will not appeal
to many, even as publication in microfiche is not considered much
of an accomplishment. An online catalog has magical “black box”
qualities to it, but it only contains a document surrogate, a skeletal
representation, useful only in retrieving the actual item. An intangible
historical treatise is a virtual contradiction in terms.
History is not a science nor will all agree on whether it is either
a social science or humanity. It is both an art and a craft (Becker,
1978). History which employs social science methods may be better
suited to take advantage of and be more amenable to electronic
publishing, which is ill-suited to conveying the art of written text.
For the craft aspects of historical research, however, electronic
publishing promises useful tools.
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